Russians grill their president

Muscovites braved the cold to watch the broadcast

Russian President Vladimir Putin has answered a barrage of questions from his country's citizens in a marathon live appearance, broadcast simultaneously on TV, radio and internet.

We have not managed to increase salaries as much as we would like because we want to pay off our national debt

Vladimir Putin

Russians from across the country and abroad sent in around 500,000 questions by internet and telephone, most of them about low salaries and poor electricity and heating services.

The Kremlin's aim was apparently to bring Mr Putin closer to the people, but some observers said his performance was initially tense and defensive although he apparently relaxed as the broadcast went on.

The president appeared well-briefed, reeling off facts and figures to back up many of his answers.

Money worries

He took the opportunity to list what he believed Russia had achieved over the past year.

"One can boldly say that the past year, 2001, was successful for Russia," Mr Putin began by saying.

Mr Putin said that he gets on with the US president like family

He said incomes were up by 6.6% in real terms and the average wage had increased by 21%. He said unemployment rates were falling and birth rates rising.

But a teacher from the city of Yekaterinburg in the Urals complained that her salary was "comical". And a World War II veteran demanded to know why she had to survive on a pension of 1,000 roubles ($33) per month.

"We have not managed to increase salaries as much as we would like because we want to pay off our national debt," admitted Mr Putin.

He also blamed local officials for not giving pensioners their full entitlement.

A 10-year-old boy told Mr Putin his school in the Siberian city of Irkutsk had been closed for three weeks because there had been no heating. He was worried he might miss out a whole year's schooling if the situation did not change.

"We have to overhaul the entire energy system, especially in far-flung regions as important as the Far East," Mr Putin responded.

American family

Mr Putin also used the broadcast to talk about the improved relations between Russia and the United States, saying that the US decision to withdraw from the ABM treaty would not pose any problems.

We were in quite a family atmosphere

Vladimir Putin on meeting George W Bush

"Everything that has been done in recent times instils us with hope that relations between our two sides will be developing in a positive key," he said.

Asked if he, as a former Soviet intelligence officer, had had any qualms about staying in the American President's home, he said he had not been concerned.

"The current president of the United States is himself the son of a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency. That's why one can say we were in quite a family atmosphere and understood one another pretty well," he said.

Only a handful of the thousands of questions that were sent in made it to air.

So the person who wondered who picked out Mr Putin's "wonderful neckties" or whether he ever suffered pangs of conscience, may never know the answer.